A manufacturer running on a connected system has a great deal of data. A dashboard is what turns that data into an at-a-glance picture. This piece is about building manufacturing dashboards in Odoo.
What a manufacturing dashboard is for
A manufacturing dashboard brings the key measures of the manufacturing operation together into one view, so that the state of the plant can be seen at a glance. Rather than a manager having to go and look at production here, output there, quality somewhere else, a dashboard gathers what matters into one place. The purpose is speed of understanding: a dashboard lets someone responsible for the plant see how it is doing, quickly, regularly, without digging.
What a manufacturing dashboard should show
A good manufacturing dashboard shows the measures that genuinely matter for understanding and managing the plant. The honest principle is that a dashboard should show what the manufacturer will actually act on, not everything that could be measured. The kinds of things a manufacturing dashboard typically benefits from showing are: production output, how much is being produced; the state of manufacturing orders, what is in progress, behind, complete; measures of how well production is performing, such as equipment effectiveness; quality measures, how much trouble there is; and whatever else is genuinely central to how the manufacturer judges the plant. The specific contents should be chosen by what the manufacturer needs to see to manage well.
The dashboard rests on the data
A manufacturing dashboard is only as good as the data behind it. A dashboard displays measures, and those measures are computed from the data the operation accumulates, production recorded, work orders timed, downtime and quality recorded. If that underlying data is accurate and faithfully recorded, the dashboard shows a true picture. If the data is patchy, the dashboard shows a confident but misleading picture, which is worse than no dashboard, because it invites decisions based on a wrong view. So building a manufacturing dashboard worth having rests on the operation recording its data faithfully. The dashboard does not create the picture; it displays the picture the data holds.
The reporting and dashboard capability
Odoo provides reporting across manufacturing, production analysis and other reporting, and capabilities for presenting data, and the more advanced dashboard and reporting capabilities are part of Odoo Enterprise. A manufacturer building dashboards should be aware that the depth of dashboard capability relates to the edition. The principle, though, is the same regardless: a dashboard brings the manufacturer's key measures together for at-a-glance visibility, and what it shows should be chosen by what the manufacturer will act on.
Build the dashboard for its audience
A practical point. Different people managing a manufacturing operation need to see different things. A plant manager, a production supervisor, a leadership view, each cares about a somewhat different set of measures. Building manufacturing dashboards well means building them for their audience: a dashboard for the person who will use it, showing what that person needs to manage their part of the operation. A single dashboard trying to serve everyone often serves no one well. A manufacturer may build more than one dashboard, each focused.
A dashboard is for acting, not just looking
The honest point about dashboards. A dashboard is valuable only if it is used to act. A beautifully built dashboard that is glanced at and never drives a decision is decoration. The point of bringing the key measures together is so that, when something on the dashboard shows a problem, output down, orders behind, quality slipping, someone notices and acts. A manufacturer building a dashboard should build it so it prompts action, and should make looking at it, and responding to it, a genuine habit. The dashboard is a tool for managing the plant, not an end in itself.
The takeaway
Building manufacturing dashboards in Odoo means bringing the key measures of the operation, output, order state, performance, quality, into one view, so the state of the plant is visible at a glance. A dashboard rests on faithfully recorded data, and the more advanced dashboard capability is part of Odoo Enterprise. Show what the manufacturer will act on, build the dashboard for its audience, and make it a tool that prompts action, used as a genuine habit, rather than decoration. For how we approach Odoo for manufacturers, see our manufacturing work.